Army Pack - Standardised or Points?

Started by Leon, 20 March 2019, 12:47:13 AM

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Do you prefer your ready-made army packs to contain standardised contents or be built to a points value?

Standardised please!
25 (92.6%)
Points for me!
2 (7.4%)

Total Members Voted: 26

Leon

We're about to get all of the new BKC-IV army packs prepped ready for our launch at Salute so we wanted to get a bit of input from you guys!

When you're buying a ready-made army to go with a set of rules, which do you prefer:

- Standardised: Where every army pack contains 1 x CO, 6 x Infantry units, 1 x Mortars, 1 x MG, 1 x Armoured Car, 3 x Armour units, etc.
OR
- Points Value: Where the contents equate to a fixed points value, eg 1500.

With standardised packs the pricing is nicer as it would be roughly the same for every army, but the downside is that you'd need to point them up yourself and bolt things on to make a full battlegroup.  If we go with a fixed points value then you're always getting a set valued battlegroup that you can pick up and play straightaway in most of the scenarios in the rules, but the pricing might vary from £25-£40 depending on the contents.

The 'Points Value' packs would still have a similar make-up, but with more/less armour and artillery depending on the unit costs for that army.  As an example, armour for the German NW Europe army is expensive so you might have the usual command / infantry / support and then only 2 or 3 armour units in a 1000-1500 point army.  At the other end of the spectrum, the units in the Polish lists are quite cheap so you might have all the core stuff plus 5-8 armour units, several armoured cars, trucks, etc.

Let us know and we'll get these ready for Salute!


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Last Hussar

Neither.

Rules specific army packs tend to be useless.
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lowlylowlycook

I don't think I remember many systems that put out packs or starter boxes by points.   Even GW starter boxes that come with two armies seem to have unbalanced sides. 

I'd say that Standardized would be easier to understand.

Steve J

I tend to make my own packs based upon the army I'm building as well as how many figures I will put on a base. But broadly speaking I think standardised would work better.

fred.

I think I would go for standardised. I think trying to do points based ones will be hard work
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Genom

I've always preferred standardised for this period. But I've always tried to base my forces roughly off of what would have been available to them.

fsn

Hmmmm. I think whatever you do, you're not going to please everyone - probably because I can see both sides.

If you go points, that ties the packs in with the rule set. Plus for BKC, not so good for sales to those using other rule sets. How many packs are you thinking? Just taking German 1944 you have Panzer, Pz Gren, Infantry, Para, SS Panzer, etc, etc. You could chuck in a Tiger and use up a lot of points, but probably StuGs or PzIV would be cheaper and more realistic ... and less attractive to the unwashed masses.  

If you go standardised, then at least one knows what one is getting. However, if I put my 6 Shermans and an M8 up against 6 Panthers and a SdKfz234, I'm not going to be happy. However, this would make the army packs more attractive to non-BKC users.

Othe options I see are 1) not offer army packs 2) Offer battallion or company packs* - British Tanks Sq of 3 Churchills and 2 Shermans 750 points, German SPG of 2 Wespe and a Hummel 350 points - lot more for you work, but would give more flexibility to the purchaser  3) lie in a darkened room with a cold compress and a bottle of whisky and wonder "why?"

*Don't know the way BKC operates so apologies
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Kiwidave

Standardised, but by unit type. e.g. an infantry battalion pack, an armoured battalion/squadron/brigade pack, etc. That way purchases can mix/match to suit their requirements.

I think that you may end up making a rod for your own back though, as (for example) a 1940 German infantry battalion is quite a different beast to a 1944 one, as is any armoured formation you can think of.

Has there been much demand for army packs?

petercooman

I would go standardized.

Maybe put an estimated  point value on the packs so people know how much points they are roughly getting by buying those packs?

I will never buy a force on it's own. i always want extras to swap out , try different things, have as reinforcements  in a campaign etc...

I always was a fan of unit/ army boxes/packs that say, you need xx to play a game, this box contains xx and a bunch of extras to try different things!

Matt J

Standardised

but... why not offer a starter bundle - 1 rule book 2 equally matched starter armies say NW europe 1944 - Brits/Yanks V Germans (1000/1500pts) with mdf bases and maybe some buildings and a bit of a discount.  (look at warlords bolt action starter set)

lure people in so they become hopeless addicts like the rest of us  :)
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Ithoriel

Standardised is probably not too unbalanced if the armoured component is "workhorse" vehicles not the more glamorous ones. So, late war packs need PzIVH, Cromwell, Sherman 75 (or 76?) or T34s not Panthers, Fireflies or IS-2s.
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jimduncanuk

From a budgeting point of view I like standardised army packs.

I would maybe spend about £50 with one trader at a show. An army pack at £30 odd quid and a couple extra packs (pre-ordered of course) for the bits and pieces not covered by a standard pack keeps the overall bill under budget.

Then I might buy another combination next show for their opponents.
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Orcs

FSN is correct that you cannot please everybody, I think  a standardised pack is the way to go, in the same way as you do the other period army packs.

It is easier for you to make up the contents. Ideally try and tie this in with contents of the moulds, to reduce number of spins.

The suggestion of separate army and infantry packs is a good one, but again could be fiddly.

You will still get someone saying " Please could you replace all the Pz4's with Stugs and can I have  a Tiger 2 instead of the Panthers, and can I have one less mortar and one more machine gun! "........"and as I have bought a whole army pack can I have an extra discount on top of the discounted army price."

If people want extras or customised packs they can place a standard  order.
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Leon

The standardised ones are a little easier to put together as there's no fiddling about with the points to get it to a certain value.  We'll also be linking people to the MicroMark lists if they want to get historical ORBATs and put together an army from that.

Quote from: lowlylowlycook on 20 March 2019, 02:35:05 AM
I don't think I remember many systems that put out packs or starter boxes by points.

There's quite a few out there, I think Warlord/Bolt Action is probably the most popular.

Quote from: Kiwidave on 20 March 2019, 08:52:55 AM
Has there been much demand for army packs?

There usually is, it's an easy way to get folks into a period if they can just grab a set of the rules and couple of pre-packaged armies and off they go.

Quote from: Matt J on 20 March 2019, 09:58:53 AM
Why not offer a starter bundle - 1 rule book 2 equally matched starter armies say NW europe 1944 - Brits/Yanks V Germans (1000/1500pts) with mdf bases and maybe some buildings and a bit of a discount.

That's one of the perks of the standardised route where all of the armies will be roughly the same price.  We can offer a '2 x Armies / 1 x Rules' bundle deal at the shows and those tend to go quite well.  We're going to leave the bases out of these for now I think, we did plan on putting them in but the rules don't insist on a set size so it's probably best for folks to decide what they want to do there.

Quote from: Ithoriel on 20 March 2019, 10:46:37 AM
Standardised is probably not too unbalanced if the armoured component is "workhorse" vehicles not the more glamorous ones. So, late war packs need PzIVH, Cromwell, Sherman 75 (or 76?) or T34s not Panthers, Fireflies or IS-2s.

We'd definitely keep it to the more regular types of armour as much as possible.
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Orcs

If you wanted to add bases in a flexible way, you could just say "plus X number of base packs". the buyer could then just choose as packs are all the same price.  At shows He could just go to the front of the stand and pick the ones he wanted
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